McGarden

I am not trying to be flip with this title. It's just that the garden is so close to McDonald's and when we are out and about and want to have an easy picnic, we buy lunch from McDonald's and eat outside the gate looking into the garden. This particular garden is one of Maine's little gems and I have featured it many times: here, here, and here. So here we go again. I hope that you will enjoy it.

We enter here...

 to find the garden awash in light and deep shadows

 with coneflowers growing in abundance and what's that?

 a butterfly...don't let that face spook ya!

 nor this hornet...

daylilies are everywhere with many different varieties and how I wish I knew all their names

pink phlox

three red berries...

this was such a magical scene...the sprinklers were on and the water droplets were on everything... John walked into the middle of it...did the camera capture what I was seeing? nope

 vintage picket fence

lily pads on the recently installed water feature below...

I so love these twiggy garden tripods that I think I'll be going back today to snag one

looking down through the barn where women were potting plants while their dogs enjoyed the shade

 a wonderful stone planter filled with parsley

I enjoy the garden as much for the quintessential New England farmhouse as the plants...this is the shed door...note granite steps...we have lots of granite in New England

 an empty clothesline! I could have filled it very recently

 the back door to the kitchen...again, note the granite steps

leaving you with my three tomatoes ripening nicely in the butter dish

I'm working on a post about what I learn from watching my statistics. You may be surprised. Hope that you'll join me tomorrow!

Talkative Tuesday

Each morning for the last four I've zipped into Site Meter hoping to check my stats. The numbers are plummeting like Wall Street, which does nothing for self-esteem. As you probably already know, SM is switching servers so there are going to be interruptions in service. They said that these interruptions would only last a few hours. Sure.

Edited to Add:

This is what I mean by numbers plummeting. My site meter has been down for four days. That means all numbers are nearing zero. Just let your head bend around that one for a bit. =D Of course, I know these numbers are incorrect. You've been here after all!  Still they are dispiriting.

So I did what any self-respecting blogger would do and checked the stats that Blogger provides. However, I don't understand them as the numbers are always so much higher and presented so much differently from Site Meter's.

Ditto with the third stat site I have brought on board. It's difficult to compare numbers when the numbers are not the same from site to site so I'm hoping that Site Meter will be back up and at'em soon.

***

Thank you for the nice comments on my last post. I heard from the curious about what is on the bookshelves. My photography, especially when zooming, made reading those itty-bitty titles a challenge. Plus I have them stacked every which way because there are books, old and new, arriving all the time.

One new one is 5•Minute APOLOGETICS for TODAY by Ron Rhodes, which I won at Debbie's Of His Pasture. Thanks so much, Debbie! We have added this one to our morning devotions and have had some great discussions like the one we had in response to this quote: Some critics claim the New Testament contains fairy tales, but these same critics make up their own fairy tales to explain away the evidence.

***

Last week my entire house looked as if I were running a laundry. My dryer had staggered through its final load. The thing is, John fixed it awhile back, though it was just too far gone this time. The dial wasn't advancing and I'd come to, hours later, realizing that the dryer had been going and going and going. (That can happen when the laundry room is in the basement.) I had clothes drying on racks and hanging on hangers everywhere. Thankfully, my niece let me borrow her dryer twice for towels. I'd never have been able to dry them in all the humidity.

Yesterday, the new dryer arrived. It'll be a bit of an experiment because we returned to an electric dryer after having had a propane one. I did not want to pay the extra money for a propane dryer. Especially not when we replaced the stove this year; the refrigerator is limping along; and the lawn mower kicked it on Sunday. I've never had such a year for appliances/equipment giving up the ghost.

Anyway, I did so much laundry yesterday that I must have been up and down those cellar stairs two dozen times. Today, my old bod is creaking.

***

We haven't watched too much of the Olympics, though it's on for about an hour each evening. I noted that the Synchronized Swimming was held on Sunday, though it was not televised. I've tried, but can't find when NBC is planning to show it, if at all. If you know...

***

Off to water the gardens... Things are looking up — a ripening tomato and a lone blueberry!

***

Reminder:  August's Note Card Party coming up next week. Still time to load new photos or check on old ones. 

From My Perch~Mosaic Monday

Saturday afternoon found John napping on the sofa and me napping in the recliner. After waking and finding John still dozing, I decided to try a little experiment with photo taking and my mosaic for Mosaic Monday — anything would work as long as I could zoom with my camera without leaving my "perch." Talk about lazy! No, it wasn't laziness, it was consideration. ☺

Not entirely successful, though definitely interesting...

Did you already find the first mosaic I did? I hadn't included one of my favorite photos so it was redone. Having spent so much time on the first, I included it in the final. Now I have both!

I must show you the apothecary lid on its own because the soft colors the glass picked up in the afternoon light are lovely to me.

~apothecary lid~

Join Mosaic Monday already in progress at Mary's Dear Little Red House.

A sweet August week to you...

Telling It Like it Is

~If I Were the Devil~

Paul Harvey telling it like it is. I'll say!

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. ~Ephesians 6:12

Short Saturday Post

 ~Thin Morning Glories~

~Chewed Morning Glories~Dang Japanese Beetles~

I will visit you today. Hope that you won't mind if I sit there in one of your lawn chairs listening to the music or watching the kids play in the pool while scratching the doggies' ears or rubbing the cat's tummy and all without comment.

I return the favor...

A blessed weekend to you!

The End

Thanks to all who've helped me redeem my $7. Seven dollars + two hours at the Game Farm = expensive. Seven dollars + four posts = a bargain! 

Where were we? Oh yes, so it was getting hot and we needed to be sure to leave in time to pick Jake up at school. We visited the raptors, saw a turkey vulture or two...yawn...and enjoyed the shade of this spooky old tree.

Not too much later and we were on the road again telling our story. Do you do that, too? Make a story out of traveling so that it goes by more quickly?

Soon we shall climb the first of three great hills...
(Spoken with authority and a titch of reverb.)

"Four great hills, Nonni." Sam corrected me.

Right. Soon we shall climb the first of four great hills...

 Then we shall come to Two Mountain View...

Now past the big lake shining waters (with all due apologies to Longfellow)

***

And now we have our boy Jake in tow and, not wishing him to miss the entire "Animal Farm" experience, we take both boys to the Ice Cream Farm (not to be confused with Land of Idyllic Picnic) where we can munch on ice cream cones and sniff that farm fresh aroma thereby killing two birds with one stone and putting out an olfactory nerve in the process.

At this point, we have finished our ice creams, though not without some difficulty. Jake prefers his ice cream in a dish. The ice cream was hard. He wanted no help. The first three spoonfuls were neatly flipped right over his shoulder onto the grass. Good thing he was as amused as the rest of us were. ☺

Jake likes the pigs. He wanted to climb in and play with them. Sam gave him an "oink oink" right on the neck so that Jake would know what playing with pigs would be like. I figured it was going to be like war. All Jake said was, "Please do not give me an oink-oink on the neck."  Phew. Skirmish avoided.

 Llamas are so interesting...

 Such intelligent faces...                                   (Jake was a bit wary.)

Kind of human-like... Yes?

And here's our boy Sam saying that his feet hurt. I shouldn't wonder...all that walking and bike riding in flip-flops.

Yet, he had one more trick up his sleeve. He has mastered the monkey bars. (Yes, he got all the way across; In typical fashion, I missed it.)

Tomorrow? Back to normal, whatever that is...

Have a happy weekend!

Animal Farm Gardens and Things

 ~Gnarled Mossy Tree~

 ~Odd Shaped Tree~

 ~Our Idyllic Picnic~

 ~Not Sure Exactly What They Are Save Very Colorful~
Rudbeckia or Gaillardia?
(Very similar, though I'm thinking that Rudbeckia is the answer as they are perennials {assuming the Game Farm staff would be frugal} and they have the dark eye. Gaillardia is an annual and can have a variety of eye color. Phew I'm happy now. Thanks to both Lisa and Diane!)

 ~Morning Glories Growing up a Chunk of Driftwood~

~Benches on the Edge~

All the reasons why $7 may not have been so bad.

Tomorrow? The end of a perfect day.

Are you enjoying these first days of August?

Animal Farm

Higher prices — I so remember my grandparents whining (at least, it sounded like whining to my young ears).

"Why I could buy the very finest pair of shoes for $3.50," my grandmother might say or perhaps, "I remember when a loaf of bread cost 5¢!"  (Even I can remember when bread at the commissary cost 33¢ a loaf back in the day. I'd love to find a loaf for 33¢ today, but I digress.)

The whining would sound so ridiculous to me that I promised myself that I'd never do it. Well, let's just say that I have arrived at that magical age of grandparenthood where I find that whining about prices just comes with the territory.

Used to be, back in the day, that one went to the "Animal Farm" and paid not one cent. (When I was a child.) Then there came the day when a donation box was placed out and one could give or not for the privilege of walking around sniffing what was basically a giant litter box. (When my children were little.) Sorrowfully, there came the day when the fee was $2, which was cheap enough and a welcome class trip in May, litter box or no. (When I was a teacher.)

Imagine my horror to have to pay $7 for a ticket Monday. Seven dollars! John got in for $5 and so did Sam. Seventeen dollars to walk around in the heat for a couple of hours sniffing the giant litter box. Whine...whine...whine... Here are the photos. =D

~Wild Animals Do Not Make Good Pets~

~Animal of the Month—Eastern Coyote~

~Doe~

~Stuffed Wild Turkey—mildly confusing~

 ~Bear of a Different Sort~

 ~*Lynx* Resting...yes, it's alive! And let's just say that it is larger than a Maine Coon Cat~

~Geese at the Pond~

 ~Coyote~Look Closely~

~Mountain Lion~

 ~Carved Tortoise~

 ~Peacock~

~Fawn Triplets~

~Bears~

~And Jonah Thought He Had Problems~

Sam has been here a few times before. Somewhere I have his baby self peeking through that very bear. His favorite thing?

~The Puzzle~

Tomorrow, I'm sharing some of the garden areas in the park. Hmmmm...maybe $7 wasn't such a bad price after all.


P.S. About yesterday's post. Since guests are no longer allowed to park within the park (now that's confusing), we decided to have our picnic lunch right in front of the car out in the parking lot. We never dreamed that we wouldn't be seated at a picnic table. It did have its advantages—no litter box smells for one and no hauling of stuff. With two children's car seats, a picnic basket, a cooler, and a bicycle, we didn't have room for our two wonderful chairs, though I'm putting them back in the trunk before I forget.

Can you believe that it's August so soon?!